Final Knesset results

One Israel [Labor-Gesher-Meimad] 26 [34]
Likud 19 [32]
Shas 17 [10]
Meretz 10 [9]
Shinnui 6 [part of Meretz]
Yisrael b'Aliyah (Sharansky) 6 [7]
Center Party 6 [Labor & Likud breakaway]
National Religious Party 5 [9]
United Torah Judaism 5 [4]
United Arab Party 5 [4]
National Union--Techuma 4 [various right wing nationalist breakaway]
Yisrael Beiteinu (Avigdor Lieberman) 4 [new Russian party]
Hadash 3 [5]
Balad (Azmi Bishara's Arab Party) 2 [new party]
Am Echad (Amir Peretz) 2 [Labor breakaway]

75% withdrawal?

THE JERUSALEM POST 5/20/99: "Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak will withdraw from 75 percent of the West Bank, but will insist on retaining an unspecified area along the Jordan Valley, according to the newsletter Foreign Report, to be published here today. Quoting a "senior leader" of One Israel, it said the depth of territory to be retained along the Jordan River will be determined by negotiations, but that Barak regards this strip as the "eastern final border of Israel."

He envisages most of the West Bank settlements remaining under Israeli sovereignty, with inhabitants of abandoned settlements being given the option of either moving to other settlements or resettling within the Green Line. No budget is planned for settlements, said the source, and work at Har Homa will be stopped immediately, as will "pirate settlements" that were permitted to develop during the final five-month tenure of outgoing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

While Barak will insist on Jerusalem remaining united under Israeli sovereignty, he will allow a form of "municipal sovereignty" for Palestinians in the city, while handing control of the Moslem holy sites to Jordan's King Abdullah II.

According to the newsletter, Barak is anxious to implement the Wye agreement and move to final-status talks as quickly as possible. The newsletter quoted the source as saying that while Barak may appear to be more flexible than Netanyahu in negotiations with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, "he is no less tough, maybe more so."

"If Arafat thinks he can return to his old tricks by using the possibility of Hamas operations against Israel as a kind of threat, he will learn very quickly that this tactic cannot work with Barak," said the source.

In a related development, the newsletter reports that the South Lebanese Army is in the process of disintegration. The force is unable to recruit soldiers to man its positions, while some SLA officers and men are suspected of working for Hizbullah. It said Israel has failed to find a replacement for SLA commander Gen. Antoine Lahad and noted that the commander of the SLA training camp, along with hundreds of SLA soldiers, have emigrated to Sweden.

It also reports that members of the SLA General Security Service, enticed by offers of "amnesty," have defected to Hizbullah with the names of their agents. Even though the SLA soldiers are still being paid, fed, trained, and armed by Israel, added the newsletter, many have switched their allegiance to Hizbullah."

Out of Lebanon within a year?

AP 5/18/99: "Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak says he can get Israeli troops out of Lebanon ahead of the one-year target date he has set -- and he wants to form a broad-based coalition to lower Palestinian expectations in the peace process.

Barak, a former armed forces chief of staff, also said in interviews published today that handing over parts of the West Bank will be extremely painful for him.

The prime minister-elect said he would not conduct negotiations with Israel's neighbors until he has established his government. Barak has 45 days from next Tuesday -- the day the final results are formally published in the government journal Reshumot -- to form his coalition. Negotiations begin Sunday. The final results were released late Wednesday, after the votes of soldiers and diplomats were counted.

Barak garnered 56.08 percent of the vote, compared to 43.92 percent for the incumbent, Benjamin Netanyahu. Barak's One Israel umbrella group, which according to preliminary results won 27 seats in Israel's 120-member parliament, the Knesset, lost one in the final count. The dovish Meretz Party, meanwhile, won a 10th seat that went to Hosnieh Jabara, the first Arab Muslim woman to enter the Knesset.

Barak said he would likely keep the defense portfolio for himself, at least for the next two years, in order to have sole control over the peace talks. Barak's mentor, the late Yitzhak Rabin, was also a career military man who retained the defense job while serving as prime minister.

Barak reiterated his campaign pledge to withdraw soldiers from Lebanon within a year, and even suggested it would take less time than that. ``I won't ask for a medal if I finish in 10 months and I won't jump off the roof if it takes 13 months,'' Barak told the Maariv daily. ``In my opinion, it won't take a year to finish the issue.''

The Yediot Ahronot daily said Barak has developed a five-point plan for an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon that would include a speedy resumption of peace talks with Syria and convening an international conference to set the terms of a pullback.

Barak adviser Alon Pinkas would not comment on the report, but noted that Barak has already said he was ready to resume negotiations with Syria at the point where they left off in 1996.

The Palestinians, meanwhile, sent mixed messages about a possible unilateral declaration of statehood in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. On Wednesday, Tayeb Abdel Rahman, a senior aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, said statehood might be declared within six months. Previously, the Palestinians had tacitly accepted an unofficial new target date of May 2000 for independence.

However, Salim Zanoun, the chairman of the PLO's Central Council that is to decide on a possible unilateral declaration, said much depends on the composition of Barak's government.

``If it believes in peace, this could encourage us to give a chance to negotiations with the Israelis for a reasonable period of time, close to what the Americans and the Europeans advised,'' Zanoun said...

Barak told Yediot that he had strong emotional ties to the biblical Land of Israel, which includes the West Bank and Gaza. He said whenever he passes Efrata, a Jewish settlement south of Jerusalem, he thinks of Abraham, who tended his sheep there. And whenever he is near the Beit El settlement, north of the Palestinian city of Ramallah, he is reminded of the patriarch Jacob, who placed a rock under his head there.

``Losing parts of the Land of Israel is for me extremely painful,'' Barak said. ``There are places -- not Efrata and not Beit El -- where we will have to make difficult decisions. This is one of the reasons we need a broad-based government.

It strengthens us internally and externally.'' ``When there is a broad government, the public accepts decisions more easily, and the other side expects to receive less,'' he added."

THE NEW YORK TIMES 5/20/99: "The government indicted a former U.S. Army sergeant Wednesday on charges of collaborating with Osama bin Laden in a global conspiracy to kill Americans abroad, and asserted publicly for the first time that the group linked to bin Laden had plotted to attack the U.S. Embassy in Kenya as early as 1993.

In announcing the charges against the former sergeant, Ali A. Mohamed, who last lived in California, the authorities also acknowledged that he is the unnamed suspect who has been held in secret custody in New York since his arrest eight months ago by the FBI.

Offering many new details about Mohamed, the indictment portrays him as a crucial figure in bin Laden's organization as early as 1990, just one year after his honorable discharge from the Army. He served as a supply sergeant assigned to a Special Forces unit at Fort Bragg, N.C.

The indictment does not accuse Mohamed of a role in the embassy bombings in Africa last August, but it does assert that in the early 1990s, he offered guerrilla training to Haroun Fazil, who was charged last year with leading the Nairobi bombing and remains at large...

The prosecution appears likely to be complicated and intriguing. If the charges are true, they suggest that Mohamed, a former major in the Egyptian army who immigrated to the United States in 1985, had long been living a shadowy double life, even before going to work for bin Laden.

In 1984, for example, Mohamed made contact with the CIA in Egypt, seeking to work as a spy, officials have said. The agency ultimately branded him untrustworthy and his name was put on a State Department "watch list" intended to prevent terrorists and other security threats from getting visas, the officials said.

Yet, within a year, Mohamed obtained a visa and moved to the United States, where he served three years in the Army, obtained citizenship and developed a relationship with the FBI, acting as an informant on the West Coast.

It was during that period, the indictment contends, that he was also serving bin Laden as a logistics and training expert. It says he trained members of bin Laden's group, called Al Qaeda, in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan in urban and guerrilla fighting, and how to evade surveillance...

In late 1993 and early 1994, Mohamed traveled twice to Nairobi, the charges say, and on the second trip entered the U.S. Embassy in what appears to have been a surveillance operation, carrying his American passport.

Later that year, the indictment says, Mohamed and other Al Qaeda members reviewed plans about "a possible attack" on the embassy. Other buildings were also to be attacked, including one that housed the U.S. Agency for International Development, and British, French and Israeli interests in Nairobi...

The government also charged that Mohamed lied to a federal grand jury last year that was investigating the bombings, and that he possessed "terrorist training manuals," including documents on planting explosives in buildings and assassination techniques."

No Hamas change despite Barak moves

Amman's AL SABIL 5/18/99--Interview with Khalid Mish'al, head of the Political Bureau of Hamas:

[Al-Sabil] It is clear that Iran is concerned about the Palestine question. Why did Iranian President Khatami meet with the Palestinian opposition factions in general and Hamas [Islamic Resistance Movement] in particular during his visit to the Syrian capital, Damascus?

[Mish'al] There is no doubt that Iranian President Mohamed Khatami's meeting in Damascus with the Palestinian opposition forces in general and the leaders of Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, and the Islamic Jihad movement in particular has a significant political implication.

It means that the Islamic Republic of Iran supports our Palestinian people, their legitimate right to their land, and their steadfastness and resistance against the Zionist occupation.

President Khatami clarified this during the meetings, stressing that the Oslo accords, as well as the other political settlement accords with the enemy, have failed to achieve the goals of our people and their national rights.

We, in Hamas, as well as our people's active forces, which are determined to stand fast and resist, highly value this distinguished position of the Iranian leadership and some other Arab and Islamic countries. This reassures our people that their nation stands by them in their conflict with the Zionist enemy.

We are also contented with the growing relations between Iran and the Arab countries--relations, which are a necessary to promote Arab-Iranian relations, mobilize the nation's energy in the face of the common Zionist enemy, remove differences among our nation's countries, and focus the conflict on the Zionist project.

[Al-Sabil] The results of the Zionist elections may appeared before the publication of this issue. Do you, in Hamas movement, prefer to see Netanyahu win the elections, as some people say?

[Mish'al] We, in Hamas movement, view the Zionist entity as a hostile entity, which occupies our land, usurps our sanctities, and oppresses and tortures our people. We also believe that despite their different political trends, the Zionist enemies are all partners in the crime of aggression against our land, people, and nation.

The electoral campaign and programs of the Zionist parties show more extremism and intransigence. Moreover, the programs of the large parties regarding the basic issues of our people, such as Jerusalem and sovereignty over land, border, crossings, water are nearly the same. Differences among the Zionist parties are only tactical and not strategic. These parties only differ over means and not goals and ambitions.

Therefore, the Palestinian and Arab political forces should not make such a comparison between the enemy's leaders or wager on the results of the Israeli elections, as such a comparison means total impotence and mockery. What is required is to reject the occupation instead of making a comparison between the enemy's leaders.

We should rely on our Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim efforts and mobilize all the forces we have to serve our resistance, our inevitable battle against the enemy, and our jihad against its aggressiveness and its dangers and then to seek Almighty God's help in our fierce conflict with the enemy.

Hence, what preoccupies us in Hamas is how to launch jihad to liberate our land and defend our people and nation rather than wagering on the results of the elections and making a comparison between its leaders, who all have a black record of torturing our people and competing to achieve the goals of the Zionist project by controlling our land and our nation rather than recognizing our people's rights..."

Venezuela buys defense system from Israel

YEDIOT AHARONOT 5/18/99: "Venezuela's Defense Ministry signed a contract to procure an antiaircraft defense system from RAFAEL [Armament Development Authority] worth some $20 million. The defense system is based on the Barak-1 missile, and RAFAEL expects to receive about half the money from the deal.

The Venezuelan Government operates an old system of radar-operated antiaircraft guns. In order to improve the performance of the systems, the Venezuelan Government decided to add a missile capable of intercepting aircraft, helicopters, and missiles.

The Dutch firm Signal won the contract to upgrade antiaircraft gun systems for the Venezuelan Army and it will adapt the missile to the old system. The Barak missile is manufactured jointly by the Israel Aircraft Industries and RAFAEL.

The missile was originally developed as a sea-to-sea missile to intercept missiles fired at vessels. The missile is currently in use by the Israeli Navy and according to foreign reports also by the Singaporean and Chilean navies.

In recent years an effort has been made to market a surface-based version of the missile, and the deal with Venezuela will be the first of this version. The Dutch firm will provide three antiaircraft systems based on the Israeli missile and the deal includes options to provide three more systems."

Russia interested in relations with Israel

Moscow's INTERFAX NEWS AGENCY 5/18/99: "Russia is interested in advancing its relations with Israel, the Russian Foreign Ministry told Interfax. The foreign ministry made the announcement in response to the preliminary results of the elections of the Israeli prime minister and parliament.

In the past few years, the two countries have "accumulated significant positive potential" and developed a tendency to intensify bilateral relations. "We hope for the further advancement of such relations," the ministry said. Russian-Israeli relations stem from the national interests on both sides.

The ministry hopes that Israel will continue energetically interacting with Russia as a co-sponsor of the peace process in the Middle East."

PA judicial reform?

Gaza's AL HAYAH AL JADIDAH 5/17/99: "Al-Hayah al-Jadidah has learned from informed sources that President Yasir 'Arafat has ordered comprehensive reforms with the objective of activating the role of the civilian judiciary.

The sources confirmed that the President ordered the formation of a higher council for the judiciary to consist of 10 veteran judges, in addition to appointing a president for the Higher Court, which is one of the most important positions in the judicial corps.

The sources noted that the position of chief judge has been cancelled in view of its lack of importance and the presence of the Council and the president of the Higher Court.

They added that these measures will bolster filling in the existing gaps in the infrastructure of the judiciary. They will also contribute toward separating the military judiciary from the civilian judiciary from the point of view of their specialization...

The Minister of Parliamentary Affairs said the subject of improving the legal situation was the topic of discussion by the Palestinian leadership during its latest session. The file of the judiciary was opened during that session. He affirmed that the problem lies also in the absence of the judicial institutions.

He stressed the need to set a structure for the Palestinian judiciary and increase the number of courts, as well as to introduce computers in their work and support them through legal frameworks.